


A Simple and Difficult Choice

by origold



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes & Sam Wilson Friendship, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes-centric, Canon Compliant, Flashbacks, Gen, Happy Bucky Barnes, Happy Ending, Hope you enjoy, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Canon, Short & Sweet, didnt wanna make this too long, idk what else to tag this with
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-25 04:47:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21730300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/origold/pseuds/origold
Summary: A week after the elderly Steve died, Bucky is left alone to discover his own destiny. His first choice, is a rather simple one, but incredibly impactful.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	A Simple and Difficult Choice

“Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.”

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

A crash of thunder. Bucky wakes up in his tiny and grim Brooklyn apartment. It’s still dark out. He checks his alarm clock, which says 6:34 AM. It was pouring outside, filling Bucky’s apartment with humidity and the smell of rain hitting the asphalt. He moved his hair to the side, but it fell in his face again. It’s been a month since Steve, the younger one, left him to live in the past, presumably with Peggy. Bucky wouldn’t know, he was too angry to ask, both with Steve but also with himself. Either way, it was too late. Steve, the older one, passed away a week ago. 

Bucky was in Wakanda when it happened. He had been informed of Steve’s death by Shuri, he wish he’d had heard it from Sam, though. He and T’Challa immediately set off to New York. They had arrived in less than two hours thanks to Wakandan technology. They met with Bruce, who told them that Steve had died peacefully, and in his sleep. Bucky was glad to hear he hadn’t suffered. He met up with Sam at the funeral, who’d been on a mission in the Andes and hadn’t heard of Steve’s death until days later.

Soon after the funeral, Sam helped Bucky find an apartment in Brooklyn. They found one, small but enough. A studio apartment, located somewhere close to the border with Queens. Sam had received another mission and had to leave, but not before helping Bucky move in. They hugged and Sam left. Bucky wasn’t sure when he was going to see him again. He went to sleep, hoping to escape reality, but his mind kept playing tricks on him. His dreams, or rather, nightmares, contained nothing but his past. Nothing, but Steve. 

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“Maybe she’s got a friend.”

“Grab my hand!”

“Bucky?”

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.”

“I’m not gonna fight you.”

“Then finish it, ‘cuz I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”

“Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.”

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

A crash of thunder. 6:34 AM. Rain. Bucky sighs. Steve’s gone but he’s still stuck in Bucky’s mind. He sits up in his bed, turns and places his feet into his slippers on the floor. He doesn’t get up yet though. Bucky looks at his left arm sitting on top of the dresser across from him. A constant reminder to the moment Steve lost him again. And now, for the first time, Bucky had lost Steve. He runs his fingers through his long and greasy hair to get them out of his eyes. He then stands up and goes into the bathroom. He opens the medicine cabinet and takes a painkiller. Although he might have that new arm, it doesn’t stop him from having phantom pain. 

Bucky closes the cabinet and takes a look at himself in the mirror. His beard had grown even longer than from Stark’s funeral. His eyes are red and baggy from lack of sleep. His hair looks like it hadn’t been washed in a decade. He breathes into his hand and smells it, cringing at the putrid odor. He opens the cabinet again, and grabs a pair of scissors. Bucky begins sobbing, full on sobbing, for the first time in years, for the first time since before the war. He looks back up at the mirror and he didn’t see himself. Instead, he saw a dark reflection of himself, he saw the Winter Soldier. Memories quickly come rushing back.

“You are to be the new fist of HYDRA.”

“Sergeant Barnes? Howard!”

“Отлично, солдат.”

“Mission report.”

“Your work has been a gift to mankind.”

“Желание. Ржавый. Семнадцать. Рассвет. Печь. Девять. Добросердечный. Возвращение на родину. Один. Грузовой вагон.” His trigger words never left him, even though Shuri removed the possibility of ever turning into the Winter Soldier again. They couldn’t do anything to him anymore but the words still stung, as if they were literally burning his brain from the inside out. His locks certainly didn’t help. The tickle of the hair, although minor, gave him flashbacks to the horrible things he did as the Winter Soldier. 

He goes back into the bedroom and picks up his metal arm. He hesitantly places it over the stump at his left shoulder and locks it into place. He then wiggles his fingers of his metal arm, still unsettled at the image of watching it turn to dust. “Steve?” His name rings in Bucky’s mind, realizing that was the last thing Steve heard before Bucky disappeared for five years. Bucky goes back into the bathroom, grabs the scissors in his left hand, and his hair in his right. One snip, another, and another. Soon enough, the white tiled floor was littered with brown and oily hair. 

He looks back up at himself, and the Winter Soldier is gone. In his place, is Bucky. James Buchanan Barnes. He leaves the bathroom, and notices it had stopped raining. In its place, sunlight. He looks out the window to notice a double rainbow. Bucky cries, this time not of pain, but of joy. He had finally found peace.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work, so please let me know what you think in the comments! Anything, how to improve, what I should change, if I used the tags right or wrong. If you think you should comment on something, do it! I'd love ANY advice. Thank you for reading!


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